The
Neon Demon
is a thoroughly ugly, deeply cynical movie about the world of modeling and the
cost of fame. It's a fable of sorts that's woefully obvious in its point, and
that's just when the characters are only pulling out metaphorical knives on and
figuratively eating each other. Since this is a movie by director Nicolas
Winding Refn, who clearly enjoys finding new ways to torture and maim and kill
characters in his movies, it's only a matter of time before the abstract
violence becomes literal.

The
movie doesn't need to go that far, of course, but going that far is Refn's
point. It's a movie about extremes, in which every character begins in a fairly
recognizable place before almost all of them transform into the hideous,
maladjusted embodiment of their worst qualities. Anyone who doesn't fit that
mold is either dismissed or forced into an act of transformation. There's a lot
of forcing going on in the screenplay by Refn, Mary Laws, and Polly Stenham.

There's
also very little here about which to care. The movie's game is fairly
transparent, even with the inclusion of a series of narrative distractions and
acts of misdirection. The name of that game is Punishment—for whatever real or
imagined transgressions the screenwriters decide are worth pretty stiff
penalties. The movie arbitrarily doles out those penalties or lets off
characters without any. If the point is that such things are unfair and
undiscerning, that point becomes lost in the almost gleeful way in which Refn
dispenses the punishment.

Sixteen-year-old
Jesse (Elle Fanning) has come to Los Angeles to pursue a career in modelling
after the deaths of her parents. She doesn't believe she has any
"real" talent. Jesse, though, knows she is beautiful, and she also
knows she can make money off of that fact. A local amateur photographer named
Dean (Karl Glusman), whom she met online, takes a few (obviously foreshadowing)
pictures to set Jesse up with a portfolio to show potential employers.

The
story follows Jesse's quick rise in the industry—gaining a high-profile agent
(Christina Hendricks) on her first interview, getting her first professional gig
with one of the business' leading photographers (Desmond Harrington), and having
a famous fashion designer (Alessandro Nivola) set her up to close his latest
show. She meets a new friend named Ruby (Jena Malone), a makeup artist, who
introduces Jesse to some of her competition at a party. Gigi (Bella Heathcoate),
who frequents a local plastic surgeon to "improve" her look, is
instantly jealous of the newcomer, and Sarah (Abbey Lee) develops that attitude
after the designer chooses Jesse over her.

Depending
on who's doing the looking, Jesse is an object either of envious scorn or of
lustful desire. Dean is somewhat an exception on the first end of the spectrum,
as he proceeds with a relatively chaste process of wooing her (making the
character useless at a certain point, in light of the movie's grand scheme).
From there, the intensity increases with each character whom she meets. The
professional photographer orders Jesse to strip naked for his shoot before
rubbing gold paint on her body. The fashion designer lets out audible gasps of
yearning and sighs of almost orgasmic satisfaction just from looking at her.
Meanwhile, the manager (Keanu Reeves) of the motel where she stays has other,
criminal things on his mind.

The
most important question is where Refn falls on that spectrum. Depending on where
the movie is on either end of a key moment, he treats her with either pandering
sympathy—emphasizing that she's an inexperienced ingénue who might be too
trusting of other people's motivations—or brutal indignation.

The
moment in question is the fashion show, which climaxes in a dream-like sequence
of pure narcissism on Jesse's part, as she kisses her own reflections in a pair
of mirrors. One of those pieces of misdirection, by the way, is how the
character seems to be clairvoyant about this moment, as well as a violent
assault that she avoids—without making any effort to prevent another, unseen
woman from becoming a victim. In Refn's mind, it seems, someone has to be the
victim, whether or not it makes any sense.

From
that point of narcissism on, Jesse becomes the worst of the bunch—at least
until someone else can and does top her—and must be punished as such. The
message is confused enough as it is, and it's further distorted by the feeling
that the last act of The Neon Demon
has little to do with giving this fable a moral. It's mostly about Refn going as
far as possible—necrophilia, cannibalism, self-evisceration—simply because
he wants to and can.